Papers by Giuseppe Palaia
The present paper deals with the investigation, at conceptual level, of the performance of short-... more The present paper deals with the investigation, at conceptual level, of the performance of short-medium-range aircraft with hydrogen propulsion. The attention is focused on the relationship between figures of merit related to transport capability, such as passenger capacity and flight range, and the parameters which drive the design of liquid hydrogen tanks and their integration with a given aircraft geometry. The reference aircraft chosen for such purpose is a box-wing short-medium-range airplane, object of study within a previous European research project called PARSIFAL, capable to cut the fuel consumption per passenger-kilometre up to 22%. By adopting a retrofitting approach, non-integral pressure vessels are sized to fit into the fuselage of the reference aircraft, under the assumption that the main aerodynamic, flight mechanic and structural characteristics are not affected. A parametric model is introduced to generate a wide variety of fuselage-tank cross-section layouts, fro...
Journal of Aerospace Engineering, 2022
Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, 2019
Purpose This paper aims to present a preliminary study on a disruptive vertical take-off and land... more Purpose This paper aims to present a preliminary study on a disruptive vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) configuration based on the best wing system concept by L. Prandtl. Design/methodology/approach A preliminary design has been addressed from several points of views: a conceptual design has been carried out thanks to in-house optimization tool; aerodynamic performances, propulsion design and mechanical design have been addressed to make the first prototype for preliminary vertical flight tests. Findings The study shows the feasibility of box-wing configuration for VTOL aircraft. Practical implications The work shows a general design procedure for box-wing unmanned air vehicle (UAV) configuration. The study of this configuration can be easily adopted in wider range, from UAV to general aviation. In the last category, it can be a promising configuration for the future of urban air mobility. Originality/value This work lays the foundation for studying and testing box-wing configur...
Aerotecnica Missili & Spazio, 2018
In the last years, aircraft disruptive configurations have been studied on view to increase civil... more In the last years, aircraft disruptive configurations have been studied on view to increase civil air transport and safety of flight and, also, to reduce air pollution and noise. One of the promising configurations is the so called box wing, based on the Best Wing System concept by L. Prandtl. This paper presents an application of the box wing to the case of an unconventional Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV), called “TiltOne”, because the two horizontal wings tilt together with the engine-propeller groups, so allowing us to take off and landing vertically and to fly as a fixed wing airplane during cruise. TiltOne is full electric, with distributed propulsion; the preliminary design has been carried out by using a homemade optimization code, where aerodynamics, controls and electric propulsion are taken into account. After defining the airframe configuration, aerodynamic analyses have been performed, electric motors and propellers and batteries are defined; finally, a detailed analysis of the mechanical components is presented and a prototype has been manufactured. Preliminary vertical test flight has been carried out successfully.
One of the possible ways to face the challenge of reducing the environmental impact of aviation, ... more One of the possible ways to face the challenge of reducing the environmental impact of aviation, without limiting the growth of air transport, is the introduction of more efficient, radically different aircraft architectures. Among these, the box-wing one represents a promising solution, at least in the case of its application to short-to-medium haul aircraft, which, according to the achievement of the H2020 project "PARSIFAL", would bring to a 20% reduction in terms of emitted CO2 per passenger-kilometre. The present paper faces the problem of estimating the structural mass of such a disruptive configuration in the early stages of the design, underlining the limitations in this capability of the approaches available by literature and proposing a DoE-based approach to define surrogate models suitable for such purpose. A test case from the project "PARSIFAL" is used for the first conception of the approach, starting from the Finite Element Model parametrization, t...
ArXiv, 2021
One of the possible ways to face the challenge of reducing the environmental impact of aviation, ... more One of the possible ways to face the challenge of reducing the environmental impact of aviation, without limiting the growth of air transport, is the introduction of more efficient, radically different aircraft architectures. Among these, the box-wing one represents a promising solution, at least in the case of its application to short-to-medium haul aircraft, which, according to the achievement of the H2020 project “PARSIFAL”, would bring to a 20% reduction in terms of emitted CO2 per passengerkilometre. The present paper faces the problem of estimating the structural mass of such a disruptive configuration in the early stages of the design, underlining the limitations in this capability of the approaches available by literature and proposing a DoE-based approach to define surrogate models suitable for such purpose. A test case from the project “PARSIFAL” is used for the first conception of the approach, starting from the Finite Element Model parametrization, then followed by the c...
Applied Sciences
Recent progress of electric systems has raised attention towards hybrid-electric and full-electri... more Recent progress of electric systems has raised attention towards hybrid-electric and full-electric aircraft. Nevertheless, the current low battery energy density limits the application of these propulsive architectures to large transport aircraft. In the context of the general aviation category, full-electric aircraft for the so-called Urban Air Mobility scenario are gaining increasing interest. These air taxis, also called e-VTOL, are conceived to exploit vertical take-off and landing capabilities, to carry people from one point to another, typically within the same city. In this paper, a new conceptual design methodology for urban air vehicles is presented and applied to an innovative convertiplane, called TiltOne, based on a box-wing architecture coupled with tilt-wing mechanisms. Several TiltOne configurations have been designed according to the current regulations imposed by European Union Aviation Safety Agency, and sensitivity analyses have been carried out on the varying mai...
Aerotecnica Missili & Spazio
The present paper deals with the take-off performance analysis of PrandtlPlane aircraft. The Pran... more The present paper deals with the take-off performance analysis of PrandtlPlane aircraft. The PrandtlPlane is a Box-Wing configuration based on Prandtl’s “Best Wing System” concept, which minimizes the induced drag once wingspan and lift are given. The take-off dynamics is simulated implementing the non-linear equations of motion in a numerical tool, which adopts a Vortex Lattice Method solver to evaluate the aerodynamics characteristics taking also ground effects into account. The take-off analysis is performed for both a PrandtlPlane and a reference monoplane, with the aim of comparing the performance of the two different architectures. The preliminary results show the potential advantages of the PrandtlPlane, such as runway length reduction and improved passenger comfort.
Mechanics & Industry
The aviation world is dealing with the development of new and greener aviation. The need for redu... more The aviation world is dealing with the development of new and greener aviation. The need for reducing greenhouse gas emission as well as the noise is a critical requirement for the aviation of the future. The aviation world is struggling with it, and a compelling alternative can be the electric propulsion. This work aims to present THEA-CODE, a tool for the conceptual design of hybrid-electric aircraft. The tool evaluates the potential benefits of the electric propulsion in terms of fuel burnt and direct and indirect CO2 emissions. THEA-CODE is suitable not only for conventional “wing-tube” configurations but also for unconventional ones, such as the box-wing. The results show a significant reduction of fuel burnt adopting batteries with energy density higher than the current state of the art. A procedure to find the potential best compromise configurations is presented as well.
Aerospace
The introduction of disruptive innovations in the transport aviation sector is becoming increasin... more The introduction of disruptive innovations in the transport aviation sector is becoming increasingly necessary. This is because there are many very demanding challenges that the transport aviation system will have to face in the years ahead. In particular, the reduction in pollutant emissions from air transport, and its impact on climate change, clearly must be addressed; moreover, sustainable solutions must be found to meet the constantly increasing demand for air traffic, and to reduce the problem of airport saturation at the same time. These three objectives seem to be in strong contrast with each other; in this paper, the introduction of a disruptive airframe configuration, called PrandtlPlane and based on a box-wing lifting system, is proposed as a solution to face these three challenges. This configuration is a more aerodynamically efficient alternative candidate to conventional aircraft, introducing benefits in terms of fuel consumption and providing the possibility to increa...
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Papers by Giuseppe Palaia